Illustration and other wonders

hoosing the images to beautify the Battenberg was a slightly bamboozling experience that felt like treasure hunting on the internet. I wanted to find some old and evocative natural history illustrations that would convey the variety of ecological wonders that may be encountered on the Battenberg's voyage. I love the ability of illustration to express a quite magical natural world, full of intricacies, and occasional inaccuracies. So sometime this year, a pilgrimage to the new 'Images of Nature' gallery at the Natural History Museum is definitely in order.

In searching for something to go with the venerable picture of Darwin's own Beagle, I came across some wonderful sources of public domain images, and thought I would share some of the loveliest. The first is Vintage Printable, from which these beauties come:

Educational beetles

Magnolia by Mark Catesby

Octopus called Polypus levis Hoyle

Indian Owl by Johann Reinhold Forster - any ideas Radish?

Medieval - that's all I've got on that one!

Another source led me to Mr Edward Lear's work (not just a purveyor of fine nonsense, but also exemplary painting). So here can be found his famous Psittacidae.

Red-capped parakeet - Platycercus pileatus

Salmon-crested cockatoo - Plyctolophus rosaceus

The rather splendid Old Book Art brought that elusive lepidopteran resident of Norfolk and a whole book of mushrooms:

Swallowtail - Papilio machaon

Fly agaric with Linnean name Agaricus muscarius

And so to a delight of a different, and more edible kind. Wonder cake, my most frequently made, flexible and reliable recipe. It is particularly useful, because it happens to be vegan, and can be adapted to use whatever ingredients you have left over from other baking endeavours. It can be chocolately, fruit and nutty, spicy or all of the above. This one for example, is an almondy slice with pieces of crystallised ginger and flaked almonds as a slightly crispy topping:

Marzipan and ginger wonder cake

You will need much of the following:
175g self raising flour
3 heaped tablespoons cocoa or ground almonds (or some of both)
175g golden caster sugar
5tbsp sunflower oil
1tbsp red wine/sherry vinegar
1/2 tbsp vanilla or almond essence (or orange or peppermint if you fancy)
200ml cold water

And a selection of:
Flaked almonds
Pecan or walnut pieces
Chopped cranberries or other dried fruit
Chopped crystallised ginger
A few squares of very dark chocolate
Other goodies

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4 and line or grease a square/oblong cake tin/pyrex dish.
- Sift the flour, cocoa and spices (if using) into the tin. Add the almonds (if using) and sugar and stir to combine.
- Mark out three parallel grooves in the mixture. Add the oil to one, the vinegar to the next and the flavoured essence to the third.
- Pour over the 200ml cold water, then carefully stir everything together until well mixed, ensuring you get into the corners.
- If adding topping, sprinkle over the mixture your combination of nuts/fruit/ginger.
- Bake for about 20-25 minutes and leave in the tin on a wire rack to cool.
- If you are going for chocolate, melt your squares and flick across the cake using a teaspoon to create a Jackson Pollock-alike pud. Leave to set then cut into slices and have with a hot beverage.

You can do anything with this cake. If you use the chocolate version and add just a small amount of ground almonds, it becomes a slightly gooier affair. I've made a couple of nice variations recently, one almond, with flaked almonds, cranberries and chocolate topping. The other, chocolate, with cinnamon and nutmeg added to the flour, and cranberries and pecan topping. And the ginger one above of course, which is about to get munched.

Ooh and lastly, recently my mother made a batch of biscuits which made the biologist in me smile, as they reminded me of either cells with jammy nuclei, or honeycomb with jammy larvae...

Mmm, organelles in my biscuit!

Now light is creeping back into the days, and I've seen some Roe deer brazenly browsing the neighbour's field at two in the afternoon, there might even be a few more ecology related posts in the near future... watching for Spring.

A Wilmot Winter

Mr Wilmot and I love a good free-food forage, but what could be better than having a supply of mushrooms in our own home? We mused upon this prospect last spring, after meeting a delightful mushroom farmer in a market in Bath, who almost agreed to take me on as an apprentice. His infectious enthusiasm for the profession (combined with his amazing hat and even more amazing variety of produce) seemed to entice me towards a simple existence cultivating fungi.

This, combined with the risk of fatal poisoning wild foraging presented, made me more determined to try and grown my own. But as a summer of elderflower-related distractions came and went, and autumn brought with it new experiments with rosehip syrup, I’d almost forgotten about the mushroom farming dream come winter. Until, lo and behold, a “mushroom kit” arrived on the doorstep shortly after Christmas; Mr Wilmot was keen to put our vague musings into action.

Chestnut, white button and shiitake varieties were waiting, to be covered with soil before being transferred to a warm, dark boiler cupboard. Attending to moisture levels regularly, we waited for the mycelium to grow through the soil, and for the tiny mushrooms to appear at the tray edges. A watched mushroom tray never sprouts, and after what seemed like weeks of wondering what we’d done wrong, suddenly the silky smooth chestnut caps appeared and ballooned, and the tray on the windowsill started sprouting shiitake practically overnight, which grew larger, it seemed, by the hour.

Our minds soon turned to what to do with these home-grown delicacies. It would have been rude not to attempt my favourite of all creations, the mighty mushroom risotto, but it was the simple stir fry that surprised us most. In absence of white wine for the risotto, a good slug of rich port gave it an almost magical pale purple colour, and the shiitake (added fairly near the end, after ladlefuls of stock) gave it a delicious flavour. To recreate the risotto, you’ll need:

Arborio risotto rice (a large mug’s worth will feed 1 giant or two little ladies)

A few shallots

A small glass of port

A sprinkle of tarragon

A stock of vegan Swiss marigold bouillon, with a big teaspoon of miso brown rice paste mixed in (a good few teacups worth will be needed, depending on the quantity of rice)

A big handful of shiitake mushrooms

Half an aubergine (or whatever else you have to bulk it up a bit)

Chop the shallots finely and sweat in butter for a few minutes, before adding the Arborio until the grains become translucent. Add port and leave to simmer until adsorbed, before turning the heat down and addling ladlefuls of stock one by one, stirring frequently. Continue stirring and ladling for twenty minutes, before adding shiitake, diced aubergine and tarragon for the last ten to fifteen minutes of cooking time. Try to leave the pan to rest a few minutes before serving, but don’t expect hungry boys to wait!

For the simple stir-fry, we combined the chestnut mushrooms with celery, broccoli, lemon juice, creamed coconut, tahini, light soy sauce and miso paste, to create a fragrant yet subtle medley of flavours. Served with light noodles it’s an almost virtuous health-giving feast for winter nights. Mushroom fans take note – cultivating these perfectly formed little beauties was so effortless it made our fairly easy-going vegetable patch seem like hard graft. There’s really nothing quite like eating your own home-grown ‘shrooms.

A Yorkshire Autumn

ast autumn sowed the seed of the Battenberg's voyage, as I introduced Pedro and Radish to my little corner of Yorkshire. Our wanderings took us to tea shops, through woodlands to hilltops and to kitchen tables. The spell of unemployment took me to recipe books and experimental afternoons with the Aga. One particularly glorious day, well supplied with snacks, we three headed to Hardcastle Crags, a wooded valley extending to moorland, owned by The National Trust. Many stepping stones, funny looks from dog walkers and ginger beer in the Pack Horse pub later, we'd found huge ant solaria, flowering Cowberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) and Crowberry (Empetrum nigrum) and many fungi, including a bank of moss cushioning numerous puffballs of some sort. We also came across a teepee made of branches and bracken.

The Northern Hairy Wood Ant (Formica lugubris)

Unidentified purple velvety fungi - any ideas?

Tidying up the garden I salvaged the old lavender flowers from the compost's clutches and decided to try making lavender shortbread to welcome my sister home for a short visit. It was lovely, and floral baking will be making a reappearance in my kitchen when the flowers reappear in the garden.

Purple sparkly sugar is perfectly respectable

After stripping the most appetising flowers from their stalks I roughly ground them in a pestle and used this recipe:

250g very soft slightly salted butter
250g plain flour
75g mixed cornflower and semolina (just what I had left)
70g golden granulated sugar
~ 2tsp ground lavender flowers (more or less to taste)

Preheat oven to 160C/Gas 3 and line a 6x10 inch glass dish with baking paper. If you use a smaller dish it'll take longer to cook....
- Mix butter, sugar and lavender.
- Sift flour and cornflower/semolina onto butter and lightly mix until a smooth dough is formed.
- Press the dough into the prepared dish until vaguely even. Bake for about 30 minutes until top and bottom are both light brown.
- Cool in the dish, cut when just warm but remove when completely cold.
- Decorate with what you will, we used Divine dark chocolate, small purple elephants and purple sugar.

In October my father spent a week at a conference discussing sustainable food and gender in Italy. While he was there he learnt to make gnocchi from an Italian grandmother, and when he returned we spent a morning learning from him and feasting on the tiny dumplings for lunch.

Gnocchi with cherry tomato sauce

All you need to make them are some starchy potatoes and plain flour.

- Boil your potatoes until soft, drain and allow to cool completely.
- Next you have to get them into a useable form for kneading, which technically means using a potato ricer. We didn't have one, so used a rotary cheese grater, but I think a normal grater would work too. So, rice or grate your potatoes into a big pile on a floured work surface.
- Now you shake some flour onto your pile of potato and start kneading. Flour must be added and the dough kneaded until it no longer feels sticky, but is instead bouncy and you can feel it stretch slightly. This will probably take a while, maybe 15-20mins.
- When you're happy and no longer sticky, split your dough into three or four and using the flat of your hand roll each portion into a long thin sausage shape. When it's a couple of centimetres in diameter, use a sharp knife to cut small dumpling portions.
- The gnocchi need to be thoroughly floured when then have been cut, so they do not stick together, and laid on a tray for a couple of hours to dry out.
- When you are ready to eat, drop the gnocchi into a pan of boiling water, and remove as they float to the surface, which will take a couple of minutes.
- We ate ours with a sauce of cherry tomatoes cooked in a little olive oil and torn basil. 
- Any uncooked gnocchi you don't need, freeze and save for a midnight dumpling picnic in midwinter.

October offered a great deal of baking opportunity this year, and feeling especially childlike on All Hallow's Eve my sister and I made a lot of very garish creepy crawly biscuits. We did supplement this with a slightly more mature, dairy free pumpkin pie, made with butternut squash. It still had a spider on it though.

Bats in my biscuit tin

A pumpkin stares into the future

Autumn slowly crumpled towards winter, and ice appeared on the inside windowpanes in November. Watching the icicles melt one morning I was surprised to see a disorientated and dozy wasp basking in the early sun on my windowsill. I have his photograph, but we haven't stayed in touch.

Hairy, but is that enough to keep warm?

And then, it was winter.